During the Lok Sabha election, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised - in the aftermath of triple shock of losses in Hindi heartland states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh - to do more for farmers and agriculture if voted to power.

Union Finance Nirmala Sitharaman, in her first budget, said the government aims to invest widely in agriculture infrastructure and allied areas, and would seek support from private entrepreneurship for value addition in farm sector especially in food processing industry.

This comes in the wake of PM Modi's promise of doubling farmers' income by 2022. In her budget speech, Sitharaman said "gaon, gharib aur kisan" (village, poor and farmers) are at the centre of everything that the Modi government does. She said the Modi government's principles of "ease of doing business" and "easy of living" should apply to farmers too.

Sitharaman said, "We will invest widely in agricultural infrastructure. We will support private entrepreneurships in driving value addition to farmers' produce from the field and for those from allied activities, like bamboo and timber from the hedges and for generating renewable energy."

This got reflected in the budget numbers for the agriculture and allied sector. Against the Budget 2018-19 (revised) estimates of Rs 86,602 crore for agriculture and allied activities, Sitharaman's Budget 2019-20 proposed to invest 1,51,518 crore in this sector. This comes about an increase of 75 per cent in budgetary allocation over interim budget.

Sitharaman proposed setting up of 10,000 new Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) to ensure economies of scale for farmers over the next five years. She said the Modi government will work with state governments to see that farmers get fair price through electronic National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) that was launched in 2016.

The finance minister announced a proposal of zero budget farming, which she said is like "going back to basics." Sitharaman said zero budget farming will help doubling the farming income in days to come.

Zero budget farming is a set of farming methods that involve zero credit for growing agricultural produce and no use of chemical fertilizers.

It evolved as an agriculture movement in Karnataka due to collaboration between agriculturist Subhash Palekar and state farmers association Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha (KRRS). Success in Karnataka saw zero budget farming model being adopted in other states as well. Sitharaman said the government will give it further push.

In her budget speech, Sitharaman said farmers should be encouraged to adopt dairying by creating infrastructure for cattle feed manufacturing, milk procurement, processing and marketing. She said this would turn "annadata" (a reference to farmers) into "urjadata" (energy provider).

To give a push to rural infrastructure, Budget 2019-20 proposes to make 1.25 lakh km of roads under Pradhan Gram Sadak Yojana under Phase III. This is estimated to cost Rs 80,250 crore. This investment in rural areas, the government expects, will give necessary impetus to revive rural economy.

The Budget also proposes to build 1.95 crore houses under Pradhan Mantari Awas Yojna in rural areas. She further said every single rural family, except those unwilling to take connection, will have electricity and LPG connection by 2022.

Under SFURTI or the Scheme of Fund for Upgradation and Regeneration of Traditional Industries, 100 new clusters will be set up in 2019-20 to enable 50,000 artisans to come into economic value chain.

Besides increasing allocation for agriculture and allied sector, the total allocation for rural development was increased from Rs 1,35,109 crore in 2018-19 to 1,40,762 crore this fiscal.